Monday, April 14, 2008

If you’ve watched cable news at all over the weekend, you’ve no doubt heard the latest flap over some “controversial” remarks that Obama made at a fundraiser in San Francisco about working-class voters in Pennsylvania, and other small towns in the Midwest feeling bitter about having being ignored by various administrations over the last 25 years, turning to guns or religion, and explaining their frustrations through antipathy to immigrants and trade agreements.

The Clinton and McCain campaigns have equivocated in their interpretation of the word “bitter” and have described these remarks as “elitist” and “condescending.” Fox News dispatched a producer to get reactions from small town Pennsylvanians on Barack Obama’s comments re: the challenges of reaching out to voters who are “embittered” by the economic situation and distrustful of politicians. But uh-oh!